1966/12/01 by Carol L. Marks · 56 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Literature: history, themes, analysis #Modernist Literature and Criticism #French Literature and Criticism #Intellect #Philosophy #Platonism #Testimonial #Literature #Epistemology #Art
paper · doi:10.2307/461208
published in PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 81(7), 521-534 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1966/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Although the Oxford-educated Thomas Traherne is indeed “thoroughly representative” of the “salient ideas” of the Cambridge Platonists, and without a doubt should be classed with them philosophically, he is most akin emotionally to that maverick among the Cambridge men, Peter Sterry. Yet ideological differences separate him from Sterry, and even the emotional intensity which seems to link them takes radically variant forms. The case is the same with Henry More, whose work we know Traherne read, and whose spiritual autobiography resembles Traherne's: their responses to the new ideas of space were remarkably alike in feeling, yet Traherne took issue vigorously with More's theories of space and deity, and in general lacked More's intellectual extravagance in other theological matters. We may, then, speak best of affinities with, rather than debts to, the Cambridge Platonists: the portrait of Traherne's mind shows an eclectic intellect and—more important in shaping Traherne's persistent individuality—original, highly personal feelings.